Free Speech

Some years ago a book was returned to a branch of the Onondaga County Public Library, in the margin of which some unknown soul had written words to the effect that “Reagan must die.” The volume’s return led to an FBI investigation, the focus of which as to try to identify the author of that margin scribble: could she have been identified (which she never was) she would have been brought up on legal charges for threatening the life of the President. Advocating the death of our chief executive is prohibited by law.

I am tired of hearing about the First Amendment to the Constitution. There is no principle of freedom of speech in the US, despite the habit of liberals always to retreat to the safety of the hallowed first amendment when faced with proposals to interrupt hate speech. Such controversies conveniently ignore those manners of expression which have always been and are legally regulated. Whether or not the framers of the constitution meant to imply that anyone should be allowed to say anything (and the evidence is strong that they intended no such thing), the historical reality in the United States is that certain manners of expression have traditionally been disallowed.

Expressed worries about freedom of speech tend to be disingenuous. We all know that certain speech is prohibited and illegal — were this not the case, laws prohibiting incitement to riot would be literally meaningless. Incitement to riot is after all nothing more than saying the wrong thing at the wrong time, in such a manner as to arouse illegally those people who happen to hear you while you’re saying it. There is no legitimate argument about whether or not certain speech should be interrupted: we have over 200 years of legal precedent which establishes that certain speech is not allowed in our society (which precedent tends to be distilled in conversation to a half-hearted misquote of Oliver Wendell Holmes speaking about yelling “Fire!” in a crowded theater). The issue, then, is not whether we can interrupt certain forms of expression, but rather which forms of expression we choose, as a society, to interrupt.

We have of course long since arrived at that collective decision: the only manner of expression which is consistently interrupted and regulated is that manner of expression deemed dangerous to (not necessarily by) the government. That is why Leonard Peltier remains in federal prison. There is a corollary to that statement. If one, for example, voices opposition in principle to anti-pornography legislation, or to statutes opposing homophobic utterances, one is implicitly endorsing those manners of expression. The principle of freedom of speech is a fictitious one in this society. Therefore, by opposing such statutes, we state that while certain speech can, should and will be interrupted, hate speech should not. In effect we are stating that calling someone a faggot is more acceptable than calling for the overthrow of the state. Which statement some of us find more frightening than others.

“Sure, once I was young and impulsive —
Wore every conceivable pin.
Even went to socialist meetings,
Learned all the old union hymns.
Ah, but I’ve grown older and wiser
And that’s why I’m turning you in.
So love me, love me, love me, I’m a liberal.”
      

♦ ♦ ♦